


Deny him, don't recognize him

by haipollai



Category: The Avengers - All Fandoms
Genre: Disagreement, Drawing, Looking at someone's sketchbook, M/M, Moment in time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-04
Updated: 2012-04-04
Packaged: 2017-11-03 01:16:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/375451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haipollai/pseuds/haipollai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> The open page is exercises, rough sketches of bodies in various action poses. Most have no distinguishing features. Bucky thinks he maybe sees the outline of a five pointed star on the shoulder of one that is mid-fall so he makes his eyes skim over it without seeing.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deny him, don't recognize him

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lanyon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanyon/gifts).



The sketchbook is left open on the bed between them and Bucky doesn't think twice about pulling it over to him. Steve watches him, guarded and hesitant but that doesn't stop him. The open page is exercises, rough sketches of bodies in various action poses. Most have no distinguishing features. Bucky thinks he maybe sees the outline of a five pointed star on the shoulder of one that is mid-fall so he makes his eyes skim over it without seeing.

On the next page is a view from a window and Bucky thinks it's supposed to be Brooklyn. _Their_ Brooklyn. Where they could play on the streets and there were lines for bread and their world was dirty and hard but it was all theirs. Every backdoor and alleyway had been memorized but the details are smudged and indistinct and he realizes maybe Steve doesn't remember. Maybe the memories are fading for him just like they have for Bucky.

Bucky leans against the headboard and Steve invites himself over, resting his head on Bucky's stomach. Blond hair tickles his navel and he absently brushes it away.

The next page is from one of Steve’s forays into Central Park. Then some of the team, most of them no more then sketches, never to be finished. Bucky can see the roughly erased outlines underneath the visible pencil lines. There are more of Barton and Natalia then the others. "They sit still," Steve murmurs as explanation. Bucky nods, understanding, Natalia with her ivory skin like a statue waiting for any hint of an opening and Barton with blue eyes watching him with something between suspicion and curiosity, but still both of them more like Bucky then Stark or Banner. Steve's images catch them in other moments and Bucky isn't sure he's enough a part of this team to see that so he turns the page.

There are drawings of him and he knows he shouldn't be surprised, Steve draws what he knows. In all of them his arm is flesh. He maybe isn't smiling but it's close enough. Steve is in the drawings too, still in his Captain America uniform, but it’s Steve before the serum so the uniform overwhelms him. Swallows him up. Bucky throws the sketchbook away harder then intended and for a second the room is filled only with the sound of flapping and crumbling paper. "It's not reality Steve," he growls, staring at the metal. 

"I know."

"You..." he trails off as frustration overwhelms him temporarily and he's not sure if he's thinking in English or Russian and the words stick in his throat. “Fuck Steve."

Steve pushes himself up, drawing one leg up to his chest. "I know," he repeats. His fingers hover hesitantly over Bucky's hand and Bucky's grabs it hard, wanting Steve to feel it. Steve is staring at it, and his expression is carefully schooled. He must have learned that while getting paraded around for his precious United States. "I can't remember her face sometimes."

"Who?"

"Peggy," his brow furrows as if he's trying right then. Bucky feels a stab of guilt for not remembering her, but she is among the countless dead that have been left in their wake. The price they pay for escaping time and death. "Tried drawing her the other day, ended up drawing you instead." His eyes dart to Bucky's, a sheepish smile on his face. Bucky isn't sure what he's trying to tell him. "There are things I don't want to forget." Like an idiot kid who picked up a shield that was too big for him, who died falling into a river.

“You can’t live in the past,” he growls, trying to banish the feeling of cold and lost with his words alone. He’s not sure if it works but Steve is looking at him and everything about Steve is heat whether he means it or not. Bucky basks in it greedily.

“I’m not.” He looks like the words in his head might have been something different but even in an argument Steve will look to avoid hurting the other person. A ridiculous thought occurs to him and his shoulders shake with silent laughter, Steve’s confused look only encourages it and he throws his head back and lets it out. The sound feels like it’s scratching and clawing at his throat as it escapes but he relishes in feeling something, in having a thought that he knows is entirely his. “Bucky…?”

“The Allies must have been grateful you disappeared when you did. You would have been terrible to have around at Nuremburg. Give them a second chance guys, come on.” He pitched his voice higher to make the entire impression more annoying.

“Bucky,” and he can hear the catch in his voice, the one that said I want to laugh because you’re right but the topic is Not Funny and for a moment it’s like before and they’re staring at each other because there’s nothing else. Bucky realizes he’s still holding Steve’s arm. He makes his fingers release and it feels like more of an effort, like the commands had to be translated into a language the limb could understand. There’s the beginning of a bruise on Steve’s lower arm but Bucky doesn’t feel guilty. Maybe if Steve feels it enough, he can pass some of that feeling back and Bucky won’t feel so empty.

Steve reaches for the discarded sketchbook and a pencil. Bucky watches. Watches and waits because there’s an explanation. Steve is reliable like that. There’s always an explanation, a why that can be held and examined and understood. There is no confusion in Steve’s thought processes; it’s refreshing to escape from the muddle in his head.

When the drawing is held out for Bucky to see, it doesn’t even need Steve to say anything. “I see it,” he explains anyway. It’s barely more then a sketch but Bucky can tell it’s him. The drawing is right then, that exact moment with Bucky half leaning against the headboard and the pose would be relaxed except for the tension across his shoulders. The arm is metal, the star just poking out from under his sleeve. Somehow seeing that, seeing himself through Steve’s eyes, because somehow Steve manages to make him look beautiful, hurts worse then seeing what he was before.


End file.
